


like black holes in the sky

by De_Nugis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-06
Updated: 2011-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-19 02:00:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/De_Nugis/pseuds/De_Nugis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean go on, but they don't get to leave stuff behind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	like black holes in the sky

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Pink Floyd. Though no archive warnings apply, there is mention of hell and torture, self-harm, and character death (not Sam or Dean) in the background. Future!fic; vague general spoilers for canon to date.

It happens every few months. Sam gets home from work at six, pokes his head into the living room looking for Dean, and sees guns.

They’re laid out on every surface, disassembled and spotlessly clean, like Dad had taught Dean. Like the Marines had taught Dad, Sam supposes, before the monsters did. Damn. Sam sets down his bag and takes the stairs two at a time. He can hear the skating swish of knife and whetstone from Dean’s room, overlaid with the constant, broken mutter of Dean’s voice.

Dean’s sitting on the floor against the bed. There’s a flask by him, but this isn’t a bender. He’s got the knife he keeps under his pillow and the old whetstone. His head is bent with concentration, his wrist moves in a practiced blur.

Sam crouches down next to him. “Hey, Dean,” he says. Dean looks up. His eyes are bloodshot.

“Hey, Sam,” Dean says. His eyes go back to his work, perpetual motion.

“I was good, you know,” he says, like he’s continuing a conversation. “I was fucking fantastic, Sam. Some souls, they’d held out for months, down there, years, and I broke them just by setting up. Laying things out ready, sharpening my knives, testing the edge. Didn’t even have to start in on them.”

Sam waits for his moment, doesn’t want Dean to slip and cut himself – that happened once, eight stitches -- flashes out and catches Dean’s wrist. He twists the knife out of Dean’s grasp, pries his fingers off the whetstone and puts it and the knife up on the nightstand. Dean makes an animal sound, loss and anger.

“Shhh,” says Sam. He gets his arms around Dean’s shoulders, nudges Dean’s hand toward the flask, God help him. Dean takes the hint, drinks, then reaches up for the knife. Sam holds him back. Dean’s fingernails are raw and ragged and black with blood.

“It’s OK,” Sam says, “You were finished. You can stop.” Dean closes his eyes.

“Can’t stop, Sammy,” he says, “You should know that. Gotta maintain the equipment properly. Dad’ll be back soon. He’ll check. You know what he says, it’s how you can tell a good workman, by how he treats his tools. I was good. Alastair used to say just by looking at my knives he could tell, could see I’d been taught right. Said my Daddy would be proud of me.” Dean thunks his head back against Sam’s shoulder with a sob. Sam hands him the flask again.

Some nights Sam takes bottles from Dean’s hand, at least substitutes beer for whisky. Plenty of days Dean drinks Coke and laughs and grouses about how it’s never as good from the can, will never live up to the Platonic ideal he tasted once or five times at some backroads diner in Nebraska. Not tonight. Sam cheers on each slug Dean takes, imagines the burn down his throat, prays for him to pass out quicker. Whenever Dean puts the flask down Sam catches his wrists again. Dean’s hands twitch and jerk against Sam’s, straining after the knife and the whetstone.

He does pass out at last, or close enough. His breathing gets heavy and his hands go limp and still. When Sam pulls him onto the bed he mumbles and subsides. Sam takes off Dean’s shoes and belt, settles him on his side, waits long enough to be sure he’s not going to puke or wake up.

Then Sam gathers up flask and knife and whetstone and takes them downstairs. He empties what’s left of the flask, puts the knife with the guns for now – he’s going to have to put them away before morning, before Dean wakes up -- looks at the whetstone. It’s smeared with the reddish brown of Dean’s blood. He should get out the oil and clean it. He’ll need to patch up Dean’s fingers, too.

Instead he steps out the front door into the chilly evening, gripping the whetstone, and throws it as hard as he can. It smashes against wood with a splintering crunch and snick. There’ll be a chunk missing from the fence tomorrow. He stands there on the dark lawn, breathing hard, tasting blood in his mouth. He wants to drain a six-pack of demons, suck in all the power there is, call Alastair up from whatever hell under hell he’s in and kill him again, slowly. It’s evil, it’s the last thing Dean wants of him, but Sam doesn’t give a fuck. It’s fucking _commensurate_. Not like finding the aspirin and leaving a wastebasket ready by his brother’s bed, so Dean can, what, unload hell?

Mr Denby, dragging his trash to the curb across the street, waves at him. Sam waves back mechanically. He’s fucking lucky he’s not a demon, Mr Denby is, because Sam would do it. Tonight he’d do it in a second, and thank a kindly God for putting the demon in his path.

He goes back inside, empties scrap paper from the wastebasket from the study and sets it ready near Dean. Puts out aspirin and water on the nightstand. Settles by the bed. There’s a chair there. This isn’t the first time this has happened. It won’t be the last. Watches Dean sleep. One of these days it will happen. Dean will go back down there and he won’t come back.

Maybe spending a year and a half sleepless does something to a guy. Or being an archangel’s ex-vessel. Or else it’s some psychosomatic shit from deep in Sam’s freaky brain. Whatever it is, these days Sam can’t just get sick. Can’t spend two days sneezing, three days coughing (for a total of five days being a whiny bitch) and then mend like he used to. No. Two or three times a year now it’s like this.

Sam comes home early and pale. Turns down dinner, heads up to bed. When Dean checks on him he’s shivering under the covers and insisting he’s fine. By morning his temp’s 103 and it’s started. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” mumbled over and over. All. Fucking. Day. All night, too. You’d think his voice would wear out. But it doesn’t. “Sorry, I’m sorry.”

Dean had had a soul like that once, when Alastair was just starting to let him work on his own. She’d told him stuff, they always did, boring shit mostly, while he carved her up. She’d been, like, a gym teacher, sold out to some clever demon cause she’d wanted a kid and she couldn’t have one. Nice thing to do to that miracle baby, Dean had thought. Congrats, kid, your Mommy’s gonna star as hellhound kibble when you’re nine. Fucking mother of the year, she’d been. She’d stopped with the life story before he got to the bit where he cut out her tongue, just gone for “I’m sorry,” again and again. Ticking like a clock, dripping out of her like blood. Hearing it nowadays from Sam makes Dean’s stomach twist. Makes him want to put his hand over Sam’s mouth to shut him up.

He wakes from a half doze, shakes himself, runs the washcloth over Sam’s face again. The fever will break on its own, it always does. That’s not what Dean worries about. “Fuck,” he mutters to himself. Sam half opens his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. Dean had counted once, maybe the third or fourth time this happened. He’d lost track after Sam had said sorry eight thousand seven hundred and forty-six times.

At first Dean had tried “It’s OK,” and “For what?” and “You did good,” and “You don’t have to be.” But it hadn’t made any difference. Dean could go on feeding Sam forgiveness along with the pills and the tepid water, but it doesn’t get through. So now he just sits, makes sure his hand is on Sam somewhere, and every now and then he says Sam’s name or “I’m here.” He thinks it helps. No way to know for certain, of course. He’s sure as hell not trying some scientific method shit and doing the control version where he stays away.

After a while it gets so it’s like the hum of the fridge from the kitchen, or the traffic on Main two streets away. Something he doesn’t hear unless it stops.

That part’s no fun either, though it means Sam’s getting better.

Sam sits up, bolt upright all at once, and reaches for Dean. His eyes are open, but he’s not receiving data, not yet. Dean lets Sam run his hands over his face, his shoulders. He knows the drill.

“Dean?” says Sam.

“Yeah,” says Dean. “I’m here. I’m OK.”

Sam goes on prodding at him, as though he expects broken bones and torn flesh everywhere. His fingers press into the pulse at Dean’s neck. Dean waits, listening to Sam’s ragged breathing. Finally Sam slumps forward, rests his head against Dean.

“Cas?” asks Sam into Dean’s shoulder, “Bobby?” He’s shaking.

“They’re fine, Sammy,” says Dean. “Everything’s fine.”

Bobby’s not fine. Werewolf, two years back. He’d tidied up his books and papers and put a silver bullet in his own heart. Wouldn’t make anyone do that for him, he’d said in his note. Dean would have, if he’d asked, he hopes Bobby knew that. Would have pulled the trigger so Bobby could have family there, see a friend’s face last thing. But it wasn’t on Sam. Nothing to do with Sam.

Sam sags, and Dean runs a hand up and down his back, over his sweat-soaked t-shirt. The fever’s broken. Then Sam lurches away from Dean’s hold and out of bed, scrambling towards the window and yanking fumblingly at the cord for the blinds. He manages to draw them half up in a sloping fan before his legs give way and he slumps on the floor, chin on the windowsill, eyes frantically scanning the neighbors’ backyard. Mrs. Brewster is mowing the grass. Amy and Carl are playing on the swing set.

“It’s still there,” Sam says, “I didn’t . . .” and he drops his forehead on his hands and the breath shudders out of him and it’s a moment before he draws new air in.

Dean hunkers beside him.

“You didn’t do anything,” he says, “Just got sick and annoying and made me wipe your princessy brow and haul your sorry ass around and shit. And right now I’m hauling your sorry ass back to bed.”

He pulls Sam’s arm over his shoulder, heaves him to his feet and gets him back under the covers. He’s out of it now. Dean can barely force more water and aspirin into him before he’s asleep.

When Sam wakes up he’ll be better. Demanding ginger beer – ginger _beer_ , not ginger _ale_ , Jesus, Dean, they’re completely different – and orange juice with no pulp and the one brand of saltines that’s infinitely superior to all others. He’ll be fine and back at work in a couple of days. Until the next time. This isn’t the first time this has happened, and it won’t be the last.

The way Dean figures it, they’re right, what they’re both of them thinking, deep down. It will happen. One of these times, the last time, it will be true. Dean will wake up in hell, right back home, fresh soul on the rack, Alastair smiling like Saturday morning and pancakes for breakfast. And Sam. Sam will draw up the blinds on a cold, black void. To him it will read, clear as day, “Sam was here.” And with Dean in hell, who’s going to correct his translation?


End file.
